Are Cockpit Doors Really Invulnerable?
I must have heard it a dozen times this year: “Since our cockpit doors are now invulnerable, we no longer need to worry about planes being hijacked.” Those who assert this may be arguing that it’s irrelevant that screeners miss box-cutters or other potential weapons or that we no longer need sky marshals. But in fact, the initial assertion is incorrect. The new Kevlar/composite door is very hard to breach, when it’s closed and locked. But on nearly every flight, that door will be opened a number of times—whenever a captain or first officer needs to use the lavatory or whenever a flight attendant delivers or picks up food-service items. Each time the door is opened, the cockpit is vulnerable to intrusion. Airline pilot Bob Semprini has proposed a solution. He’s designed a secondary door that can be stowed (like a pocket door in a house) in the bulkhead in front of the first row of passenger seats. The procedure would be that whenever the cockpit door had to be opened, the area forward o
